Looking for a D3 server host

[Lady Silver]

As some of you know, I have been organizing various Descent 3 team games for a few months now.

RIP Foil has been kind enough to host them for me. However, his servers are also being used as a host for other games, particularly on Friday nights, which is when I have chosen to organize the D3 matches. So we have run into some issues recently with loss and whatnot.



Is there anyone here (preferably in America or Canada) who would be willing to host two D3 servers for us either every, or every other Friday night?

I would love to find someone who can host servers with 16+ players smoothly, in large levels like Polaris and Geodomes. But if not, I would be grateful for anything smooth with 10 - 12 players in smaller levels like Halcyon and Seleg Prime.



Can anyone here help?

Or do you know anyone I can contact who might help?



Thank you for your consideration!

Lady Silver

[Foil]

If you don't get any volunteers, I can set up D3 servers on my home connection.

I have more bandwidth and cpu on my home connect than the [RIP] server... but I don't like doing that, because if I end up playing, I have a 1-2ms ping, and it doesn't feel right to have that much advantage.

(I'm also slightly hesitant because a few years ago, I got hit with bot/DDoS attacks at home from a disgruntled player when I was hosting D3 games, which was a huge pain to deal with.)

[Krom]

If Foil would be so kind as to give me a refresher on what stuff one needs to run a dedicated server these days since it has been close to a decade since I've run one, I could probably fire up a spare computer and host a couple servers on Fridays. I likely wouldn't actually be present to admin them personally, I'd just set them and have them running before I go to work, but they would be there at least as a backup.

As far as bandwidth goes, well, I think my fiber connection should be sufficient:

And I'm conveniently located near Chicago so latency should be tolerable for the majority North American players.

[Foil]

If running on a Windows box, the basics are:

1.Set up D3Server (with Thomas' updates) - it's fairly good out of the box, but you may want to tweak a couple things.

2. Networking (port forwarding for D3, might need something to get the trackers working as well, I'd have to look).

3. Configure the games (there are a few things I know to look for, or I can just send you the configs I've been using).

Shouldn't be hard to do, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Do_Checkor is probably an even better resource than me.

[Lady Silver]

Sweeeet! That would be excellent, Krom, thank you!
I'll PM you to work out the details.

Thank you for everything, Foil! I immensely enjoy organizing and playing these games, and couldn't have done it without you!
What do you think? Shall we make BreakOut the first thing we play on Krom's server this Friday?

[Krom]

If running on a Windows box, the basics are:

1.Set up D3Server (with Thomas' updates) - it's fairly good out of the box, but you may want to tweak a couple things.

2. Networking (port forwarding for D3, might need something to get the trackers working as well, I'd have to look).

3. Configure the games (there are a few things I know to look for, or I can just send you the configs I've been using).

Shouldn't be hard to do, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Do_Checkor is probably an even better resource than me.

Aye, go ahead and send a copy of the configs, would be a lot quicker than setting it up from scratch. Anything else I need to set up? Anti-cheat? Those new higher PPS mods?

I'll probably have to reinstall D3 just to get it working, I have the old folder sitting around on a drive but it hasn't been properly installed in years and several OS upgrades, so all the necessary registry keys are probably missing or wrong at best.

[Foil]

I'll send you the configs after I get home today. (If I forget, drop me an email or PM)

I forgot about AC, thanks for reminding me. Details are in the ServerOps forum here (Checkor is the person to talk to if you need access).

Regarding the newer high-pps mods, I haven't been using them. [You could try them, but it would require all the players to have the mods as well, which doesn't always go over well.]

Regarding D3 itself, I'm fairly sure you don't need to go through the install for hosting.

[Krom]

Ok, I got most of the stuff I'd need from Foil (thanks again), now I just need the levels, a copy of whatever version of the breakout mod you plan on using, and the various max players / respawn rate / etc settings.

[Foil]

...a copy of whatever version of the breakout mod...

Here you go, the link in the thread includes the mod files and the three existing (that I know of) BreakOut levels.

[Lady Silver]

Thanks for everything you guys are doing!
As far as this Friday goes, I haven't made any plans because I saw you and Foil going over all the details and I figured I didn't want to rush you guys. I am so grateful for what you guys are doing, and I want to do my best to not be a pain. (Are you done yet? are you done yet? are you done yet? )

I have told Foil before that I stubbornly don't want to play BreakOut until he is available and wants to play with us.

So, I guess I should have posted earlier but, unless tomorrow is a great day for Foil, we will skip this week. I usually like to give pilots a few days notice beforehand.

Foil, if you want to play tomorrow, let me know and I'll round up some pilots.

Thanks again guys!

[Krom]

Well, I work days so it is generally best if I know a minimum of a day in advance if I need to have a server running. It is getting to be the busy season and in the next couple months there may be times where I won't be home until late and probably won't be checking the DBB/email until some time around 7 PM central time. Tomorrow is ok though, I have the whole day off so I can get a server or two up and running with pretty short notice.

If it is a go, where would be the best place to meet up? My usual spot for D3 related chats is the #Descent channel on gamesurge IRC if that would be ok.

[Lady Silver]

I can do what ever works best for you, Krom. I want this to be as streamline as possible for you.
What Foil and I did was I would PM him somewhere around Sun, Mon or Tues and let him know what levels/mod we wanted etc, and ask if that Fri worked for him to host. If it was a go, he would set the levels up sometime before Friday evening. So I usually try to give both you and the other pilots several days notice.

Part of the gang I usually fly with meets on mumble, in the Descent Rangers channel: [url]mumble://mumble.descentrangers.com:31393[/url] . But if we need to meet I'd be happy to use the gamesurge IRC. Do you have a link?

Does what Foil and I did work for you? If so, is it best to PM you, or E-mail you?

[Krom]

PM would work fine, gamesurge IRC is one of the built in places in vortex. At the least, I could run some servers through tonight just in case you do get something going.

[Lady Silver]

Nothing is going on tonight. But I can't wait to try out one of your servers!
I will talk to Foil and see if he wants to play BreakOut next Friday. I will let you know within the next few days.

If we don't play BreakOut, I'm thinking I would love to play some Polaris CTF in your amazingly fast server!

This time I really will use PM.

Thanks!